Theosophy is that ocean of knowledge which spreads
from shore to shore of the evolution of sentient beings; unfathomable in its
deepest parts, it gives the greatest minds their fullest scope, yet, shallow
enough at its shores, it will not overwhelm the understanding of a child. It is
wisdom about God for those who believe that he is all things and in all, and
wisdom about nature for the man who accepts the statement found in the
Christian Bible that God cannot be measured or discovered, and that darkness is
around his pavilion. Although it contains by derivation the name God and thus
may seem at first sight toembrace religion alone, it does not neglect science,
for it is the science ofsciences and therefore has been called the wisdom
religion. For no science is complete which leaves out any department of nature,
whether visible or invisible, and that religion which, depending solely on an
assumed revelation, turns away from things and the laws which govern them is
nothing but a delusion, a foe to progress, an obstacle in the way of man's
advancement toward happiness. Embracing both the scientific and the religious,
Theosophy is a scientific religion and a religious science.

It is not a belief or dogma formulated or invented by
man, but is a knowledge of the laws which govern the evolution of the physical,
astral, psychical, and intellectual constituents of nature and of man. The
religion of the day is but a series of dogmas man-made and with no scientific
foundation for promulgated

ethics; while our science as yet ignores the unseen,
and failing to admit the existence of a complete set of inner faculties of
perception in man, it is cut off from the immense and real field of experience
which lies within the visible and tangible worlds.

But Theosophy knows that the whole is constituted of
the

visible and the invisible, and perceiving outer things
and objects to be but transitory it grasps the facts of nature, both without
and within. It is therefore complete in itself and sees no unsolvable mystery
anywhere; it throws the word coincidence out of its vocabulary and hails the
reign of law in everything and every circumstance.

That man possesses an immortal soul is the common
belief of humanity; to this Theosophy adds that he is a soul; and further that
all nature is sentient, that the vast array of objects and men are not mere
collections of atoms fortuitously thrown together and thus without law evolving
law, but down to the smallest atom all is soul and spirit ever evolving under
the rule of law which is inherent in the whole. And just as the ancients
taught, so does Theosophy; that the course of evolution is the drama of the
soul and that nature exists for no other purpose than the soul's experience.
The Theosophist agrees with Prof. Huxley in the assertion that there must be
beings in the universe whose intelligence is as much beyond ours as ours
exceeds that of the black beetle, and who take an active part in the government
of the natural order of things. Pushing further on by the light of the
confidence had in his teachers, the Theosophist adds that such intelligences
were once human and came like all of us from other and previous worlds, where
as varied experience had been gained as is possible on this one.

We are therefore not appearing for the first time when
we come upon this planet, but have pursued a long, an immeasurable course of
activity and intelligent perception on other systems of globes, some of which
were destroyed ages before the solar system condensed. This immense reach of
the evolutionary

system means, then, that this planet on which we now
are is the result of the activity and the evolution of some other one that died
long ago, leaving its energy to be used in the bringing into existence of the
earth, and that the inhabitants of the latter in their turn came from some
older world to proceed here with the destined work in matter. And the brighter
planets, such as Venus, are the habitation of still more progressed entities,
once as low as ourselves, but now raised up to a pitch of glory incomprehensible
for our intellects.

The most intelligent being in the universe, man, has
never, then, been without a friend, but has a line of elder brothers who
continually watch over the progress of the less progressed, preserve the
knowledge gained through aeons of trial and

experience, and continually seek for opportunities of
drawing the developing intelligence of the race on this or other globes to
consider the great truths concerning the destiny of the soul. These elder
brothers also keep theknowledge they have gained of the laws of nature in all
departments, and are ready when cyclic law permits to use it for the benefit of
mankind.

They have always existed as a body, all knowing each
other, no matter in what part of the world they may be, and all working for the
race in many different ways. In some periods they are well known to the people
and move among ordinary men whenever the social organization, the virtue, and
the development of the nations permit it. For if they were to come out openly and
be heard of everywhere, they would be worshipped as gods by some and hunted as
devils by others. In those periods when they do come out some of their number
are rulers of men, some teachers, a few great philosophers, while others remain
still unknown except to the most advanced of the body.

It would be subversive of the ends they have in view
were they to make themselves public in the present civilization, which is based
almost wholly on money, fame, glory, and personality. For this age, as one of
them has already said, "is an age of transition," when every system
of thought, science, religion, government, and society is changing, and men's
minds are only preparing for an alteration into that state which will permit
the race to advance to the point suitable for these elder brothers to introduce
their actual presence to our sight. They may be truly called the bearers of the
torch of truth across the ages; they investigate all things and beings; they
know what man is in his innermost nature and what his powers and destiny, his
state before birth and the states into which he goes after the death of his
body; they have stood by the cradle of nations and seen the vast achievements
of the ancients, watched sadly the decay of those who had no power to resist
the cyclic law of rise and fall; and while cataclysms seemed to show a
universal destruction of art, architecture, religion, and philosophy, they have
preserved the records of it all in places secure from the ravages of either men
or time; they have made minute observations, through trained psychics among
their own order, into the unseen realms of nature and of mind, recorded the
observations and preserved the record; they have mastered the mysteries of
sound and color through which alone the elemental beings behind the veil of
matter can be communicated with, and thus can tell why the rain falls and what
it falls for, whether the earth is hollow or not, what makes the wind to blow
and light to shine, and greater feat than all -- one which implies a knowledge
of the very foundations of nature -- they know what the ultimate divisions of
time are and what are the meaning and the times of the cycles.

But, asks the busy man of the nineteenth century who
reads the newspapers and believes in "modern progress," if these
elder brothers are all you claim them to be, why have they left no mark on
history nor gathered men around them? Their

own reply, published some time ago by Mr. A. P.
Sinnett, is better than any I could write.

"We will first discuss, if you please, the one
relating to the presumed failure of the 'Fraternity' to leave any mark upon the
history of the world. They ought, you think, to have been able, with their
extraordinary advantages, to have gathered into their schools a considerable
portion of the more enlightened minds

of every race. How do you know they have made no such
mark? Are you acquainted with their efforts, successes, and failures? Have you
any dock upon which to arraign them? How could your world collect proofs of the
doings of men who have sedulously kept closed every possible door of approach
by which the inquisitive could spy upon them? The precise condition of their
success was that they should never be surprised or obstructed. What they have
done they know; all that those outside their circle could perceive was the
results, the causes of which were masked from view.

To account for these results, many have in different
ages invented theories of the interposition of gods, special providences,
fates, the benign or hostile influences of the stars. There never was a time
within or before the so-called historical period when our predecessors were not
moulding events and 'making history,' the facts of which were subsequently and
invariably distorted by historians to suit contemporary prejudices. Are you
quite sure that the visible heroic figures in the successive dramas were not
often but their puppets? We never pretended to be able to draw nations in the
mass to this or that crisis in spite of the general drift of the world's cosmic
relations.

The cycles must run their rounds. Periods of mental
and moral light and darkness succeed each other as day does night. The major
and minor yugas must be accomplished according to the established order of
things. And we, borne along the mighty tide, can only modify and direct some of
its minor currents."

It is under cyclic law, during a dark period in the
history of mind, that the true philosophy disappears for a time, but the same
law causes it to reappear as surely as the sun rises and the human mind is
present to see it.

But some works can only be performed by the Master,
while other works require the assistance of the companions. It is the Master's
work to preserve the true philosophy, but the help of the companions is needed
to rediscover and promulgate it. Once more the elder brothers have indicated
where the truth -- Theosophy -- could be found, and the companions all over the
world are engaged in bringing it forth for wider currency and propagation.

The Elder Brothers of Humanity are men who were
perfected in former periods of evolution. These periods of manifestation are
unknown to modern evolutionists so far as their number are concerned, though
long ago understood by not only the older Hindus, but also by those great minds
and men who instituted and carried on the first pure and undebased form of the
Mysteries of Greece. The periods, when out of the Great Unknown there come
forth the visible universes, are eternal in their coming and going, alternating
with equal periods of silence and rest again in the Unknown. The object of
these mighty waves is the production of perfect man, the evolution of soul, and
they always witness the increase of the number of Elder Brothers; the life of
the least of men pictures them in day and night, waking and sleeping, birth and
death, "for these two, light and dark, day and night, are the world's
eternal ways."

In every age and complete national history these men
of power and compassion are given different designations. They have been called
Initiates, Adepts, Magi, Hierophants, Kings of the East, Wise Men, Brothers,
and what not. But in the Sanskrit language there is a word which, being applied
to them, at once thoroughly identifies them with humanity. It is Mahatma. This
is composed of Maha great, and Atma soul; so it means great soul, and as all
men are souls the distinction of the Mahatma lies in greatness.

The term Mahatma has come into wide use through the
Theosophical Society, as Mme. H. P. Blavatsky constantly

referred to them as her Masters who gave her the
knowledge she possessed.

They were at first known only as the Brothers, but
afterwards, when many Hindus flocked to the Theosophical movement, the name
Mahatma was brought into use, inasmuch as it has behind it an immense body of
Indian tradition and literature.

At different times unscrupulous enemies of the
Theosophical Society have said that even this name had been invented and that
such beings are not known of among the Indians or in their literature. But
these assertions are made only to discredit if possible a philosophical
movement that threatens to completely

upset prevailing erroneous theological dogmas. For all
through Hindu literature Mahatmas are often spoken of, and in parts of the
north of that country the term is common. In the very old poem the
Bhagavad-Gita, revered by all Hindu sects and admitted by the western critics
to be noble as well as beautiful, there is a verse reading, "Such a
Mahatma is difficult to find."

But irrespective of all disputes as to specific names,
there is sufficient argument and proof to show that a body of men having the
wonderfulknowledge described above has always existed and probably exists
today. The older mysteries continually refer to them. Ancient Egypt had them
in her great king-Initiates, sons of the sun and friends of great gods. There
is a habit of belittling the ideas of the ancients which is in itself
belittling to the people of today. Even the Christian who reverently speaks of
Abraham as "the friend of God," will scornfully laugh at the idea of
the claims of Egyptian rulers to the same friendship being other than childish
assumption of dignity and title. But the truth is, these great Egyptians were
Initiates, members of the one great lodge which includes all others of whatever
degree or operation. The later and declining Egyptians, of course, must have
imitated their predecessors, but that was when the true doctrine was beginning
once more to be obscured upon the rise

of dogma and priesthood.

The story of Apollonius of Tyana is about a member of
one of the same ancient orders appearing among men at a descending cycle, and
only for the purpose of keeping a witness upon the scene for future
generations.

Abraham and Moses of the Jews are two other Initiates,
Adepts who had their work to do with a certain people; and in the history of
Abraham we meet with Melchizedek, who was so much beyond Abraham that he had
the right to confer upon the latter a dignity, a privilege, or a blessing. The
same chapter of human

history which contains the names of Moses and Abraham
is illuminated also by that of Solomon. And thus these three make a great Triad
of Adepts, the record of whose deeds can not be brushed aside as folly and
devoid of basis.

Moses was educated by the Egyptians and in Midian,
from both of which he gained much occult knowledge, and any clear-seeing
student of the great Universal Masonry can perceive all through his books the
hand, the plan, and the work of a master. Abraham again knew all the arts and
much of the power in psychical realms that were cultivated in his day, or else
he could not have consorted with kings nor have been "the friend of
God"; and the reference to his conversations with the Almighty in respect
to the destruction of cities alone shows him to have been an Adept who had long
ago passed beyond the need of ceremonial or other adventitious aids. Solomon
completes this triad and stands out in characters of fire. Around him is
clustered such a mass of legend and story about his dealings with the elemental
powers and of his magic possessions that one must condemn the whole ancient
world as a collection of fools who made lies for amusement if a denial is made
of his being a great character, a wonderful example of the incarnation among
men of a powerful Adept. We do not have to accept the name Solomon nor the
pretence that he reigned over the Jews, but we must admit the fact that
somewhere in the misty time to which the Jewish records refer there lived and
moved among the people of the earth one who was an Adept and given that name
afterwards. Peripatetic and microscopic critics may affect to see in the
prevalence of universal tradition naught but evidence of the gullibility of men
and their power to imitate, but the true student of human nature and life knows
that the universal tradition is true and arises from the facts in the history
of man.

Turning to India, so long forgotten and
ignored by the lusty and egotistical, the fighting and the trading West, we
find her full of the lore relating to these wonderful men of whom Noah,
Abraham, Moses, and Solomon are only examples.

There the people are fitted by temperament and climate
to be the preservers of the philosophical, ethical, and psychical jewels that
would have been forever lost to us had they been left to the ravages of such
Goths and Vandals as western nations were in the early days of their struggle
for education and civilization. If the men who wantonly burned up vast masses
of historical and

ethnological treasures found by the minions of the
Catholic rulers of Spain, in Central and South America, could have known of and
put their hands upon the books and palm-leaf records of India before the
protecting shield of England was raised against them, they would have destroyed
them all as they did for the Americans, and as their predecessors attempted to
do for the Alexandrian library. Fortunately events worked otherwise.

All along the stream of Indian literature we can find
the names by scores of great adepts who were well known to the people and who
all taught the same story -- the great epic of the human soul. Their names are
unfamiliar to western ears, but the records of their thoughts, their work and
powers remain. Still more, in

the quiet unmoveable East there are today by the
hundred persons who know of their own knowledge that the Great Lodge still
exists and has its Mahatmas, Adepts, Initiates, Brothers.

And yet further, in that land are such a number of
experts in the practical application of minor though still very astonishing

power over nature and her forces, that we have an
irresistible mass of human evidence to prove the proposition laid down.

And if Theosophy -- the teaching of this Great Lodge
-- is as said, both scientific and religious, then from the ethical side we
have still more proof. A mighty Triad acting on and through ethics is that
composed of Buddha, Confucius, and Jesus. The first, a Hindu, founds a religion
which today embraces many more people than Christianity, teaching centuries
before Jesus the ethics which he taught and which had been given out even
centuries before Buddha. Jesus coming to reform his people repeats these
ancient ethics, and Confucius does the same thing for ancient and honorable China.

The Theosophist says that all these great names
represent members of the one single brotherhood, who all have a single
doctrine. And the extraordinary characters who now and again appear in western
civilization, such as St. Germain, Jacob Boehme, Cagliostro, Paracelsus,
Mesmer, Count St. Martin, and Madame H. P. Blavatsky, are agents for the doing
of the work of the Great Lodge at the proper time. It is true they are
generally reviled and classed as impostors -- though no one can find out why
they are when they generally confer benefits and lay down propositions or make
discoveries of great value to science after they have died. But Jesus himself
would be called an impostor today if he appeared in some Fifth avenue theatrical church rebuking
the professed Christians. Paracelsus was the originator of valuable methods and
treatments in medicine now universally used. Mesmer taught hypnotism under
another name. Madame Blavatsky brought once more to the attention of the West
the most important system, long known to the Lodge, respecting man, his nature and
destiny. But all are alike called impostors by a people who have no original
philosophy of their own and whose mendicant and criminal classes exceed in
misery and in number those of any civilization on the earth.

It will not be unusual for nearly all occidental
readers to wonder how men could possibly know so much and have such power over
the operations of natural law as I have ascribed to the Initiates, now so
commonly spoken of as the Mahatmas. In India, China, and other Oriental lands
no wonder would arise on these heads, because there, although everything of a
material civilization is just now in a backward state, they have never lost a
belief in the inner nature of man and in the power he may exercise if he will.
Consequently living examples of such powers and capacities have not been absent
from those people. But in the West a materialistic civilization having arisen
through a denial of the soul life and nature consequent upon a reaction from
illogical dogmatism, there has not been any investigation of these subjects
and, until lately, the general public has not believed in the possibility of
anyone save a supposed God having such power.

A Mahatma endowed with power over space, time, mind,
and matter, is a possibility just because he is a perfected man. Every human
being has the germ of all the powers attributed to these great Initiates, the
difference lying solely in the fact that we have in general not developed what
we possess the germ of, while the Mahatma has gone through the training and experience
which have caused all the unseen human powers to develop in him, and conferred
gifts that look god-like to his struggling brother below.

Telepathy, mind-reading, and hypnotism, all long ago
known to Theosophy, show the existence in the human subject of planes of
consciousness, functions, and faculties hitherto undreamed

of. Mind-reading and the influencing of the mind of
the hypnotized subject at a distance prove the existence of a mind which is not
wholly dependent upon a brain, and that a medium exists through which the
influencing thought may be sent. It is under this law that the Initiates can
communicate with each other at no matter what distance. Its rationale, not yet
admitted by the schools of the hypnotizers, is, that if the two minds vibrate
or change into the same state they will think alike, or, in other words, the
one who is to hear at a distance receives the impression sent by the other. In
the same way with all other powers, no matter how extraordinary. They are all
natural, although nowunusual, just as great musical ability is natural though
not usual or common.

If an Initiate can make a solid object move without
contact, it is because he understands the two laws of attraction and repulsion
of which "gravitation" is but the name for one; if he is able to
precipitate out of the viewless air the carbon which we know is in it, forming
the carbon into sentences upon the paper, it is through his knowledge of the
occult higher chemistry, and the use of a trained and powerful image making
faculty which every man possesses; if he reads your thoughts with ease, that
results from the use of the inner and only real powers of sight, which require
no retina to see the fine-pictured web which the

vibrating brain of man weaves about him. All that the
Mahatma may do is natural to the perfected man; but if those powers are not at
once revealed to us it is because the race is as yet selfish altogether and
still living for the present and the transitory.

I repeat then, that though the true doctrine
disappears for a time from among men it is bound to reappear, because first, it
is impacted in the imperishable center of man's nature; and secondly, the Lodge
forever preserves it, not only in actual objective records, but also in the intelligent
and fully self-conscious men who, having successfully overpassed the many
periods of evolution which preceded the one we are now involved in, cannot lose
the precious possessions they have acquired. And because the elder brothers are
the highest product of evolution through whom alone, in co-operation with the
whole human family, the further regular and workmanlike prosecution of the
plans of the Great Architect of the Universe could be carried on, I have
thought it well to advert to them and their Universal Lodge before going to
other parts of the subject.